[3.0] Freezer Burn - AB AoF MoM EO, Cheap, Fun, Screw the Meta

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CantripN wrote:

In your analysis, you ignore the Life on the Kaom's Heart. That frees up quite a bit of Life on the tree to go towards other things, possibly even Acro like I did on my build for Ice Spear.

Did you consider adding Acro to yours? Something like THIS

You have a very similar damage base, the same or more (probably more) Life in the end, and you have Acro + Vaal Pact. You can add more % Mana if you feel that's needed.

Just saying, if I can get 6k Life + 1k Mana + Acro on a CRIT build, you sure as hell can get a lot more on this staff as NON-CRIT. You certainly won't lack for DPS, I promise you that.

Hey there! You presented me with some sharp criticism, and a lot of points to address. First, let me say thanks! I like criticism, and I think it was fair. Now then, let me see if I can tackle these one at a time.

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In your analysis, you ignore the Life on the Kaom's Heart.

Actually, in my luxury section you will note that a Kaom's Heart is considered 'second best', in terms of what it provides the build overall. I did not ignore the Life on it in my response to Tenpada, as he was discussing the merits of dropping the Cold to Fire gem, and the difference that losing Pierce would give. We were not discussing the Life pools, and I did my best to be thorough with my response to him. Albeit you are correct, I did not discuss the HP a Kaom's gives in that response.

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That frees up quite a bit of Life on the tree to go towards other things

I loaded up your version of the tree, and noticed right off the bat that you dropped 54% of our life pool. Yes, Kaom's is a great chest piece, but the purpose of the build was to make an affordable, HC viable build with room to expand looking at later end-game considerations. Swapping to a Kaom's should be an upgrade, not a downgrade here. You also removed Warrior's Blood which increases our stun threshold by 20%. That was a very significant part of the build, and without it I fear that we will have stun concerns.

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possibly even Acro like I did on my build for Ice Spear.

I've seen your Ice Spear build actually, and I really liked it. It's a great utilization of the mechanics that make Ice Spear a good spell. However, it is a different spell from AB and has different concerns. This particular build is a shield user with a very reasonable amount of armour for a caster to give it a 'beefy' feel to gameplay. Acrobatics is absolutely out of the question, and Vaal Pact to disable our HP regen to overcome reflect indicates that you did not really look at how my build deals with elemental reflected damage. Again, it's a great method to tackle reflect damage, and in your crit build it's very strongly viable. Different build though mate.

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You certainly won't lack for DPS, I promise you that.

By my estimate, in perfect conditions I expected to hit somewhere around 500-600k DPS as non-crit. I felt really good about that number, playing the build feels good, and there are rarely instances where I was unable to just smash content up to t12's. Advancing past that point may indeed require some thought, and I did see you took several of the hallmark passives towards that goal (Whispers of Doom, another jewel socket). As with every comment that I have replied to on this build though, I have asserted that the build is a guide for anyone who wants to play this despite their previous in-game experience, currency, or confining uniques. It is definitely up for interpretation. And since I made my AB guide, I have seen five or six other cold projectile builds spring up. I'm happy for this! But they are distinct, separate builds that have different goals and methods for achieving them. Our goal was to be tanky, utilize block and armour, have a reasonable health pool, and do it for under 1-2 ex. Veterans and Piggybanks likely know how to pimp the build to their liking beyond that, but the build guide has gone under many revisions to keep the 'core' as true as possible for anyone to pick it up and play it. Any changes I make will always keep in mind this basic requirement: That anyone can play it with minimal investment and previous education.

TL;DR - I think your build looks interesting, but it is distinctly not the same build, loses much of the key themes of this build, and goes way over budget. I bet it's a great build, but misses the mark in my opinion as an entry level hardcore build that can transition into mapping reasonably comfortably. I'm very glad you shared it with me though!

I do appreciate the civil discourse :)

Yes, for a more budget version you may indeed be correct, especially as far as Life goes (my build certainly costs more at this point), but I'm not quite sure a 5L/6L Staff that costs ~4-5 ex at the time of writing as a 6L + 2 Ex Kaom is too much to ask for late end-game.
If your goal is to present a HC budget version, I suspect either will work.
Regardless, I posit that you can play on HC on T12 maps with 4K Life +1K Mana MoM and Acro and not die (skill pending), as those maps are far from the danger level of T15-16.

As for Armor vs Acro - Armor at the moment has very real problems as it doesn't apply to some projectiles correctly? It's also only vs Physical Attacks, unlike Acro that affects elemental damage to an extent, be it attack (possibly with added elemental from map mods?) or spells.

Regarding Vaal Pact - it's far from being only about Reflect, though it does allow an Elementalist the ability to do Reflect maps! It's about healing instantly :D
I'm sure you're tanky enough, but I would suggest your see how it feels with Vaal Pact before you discount it. There's plenty of situations, and map mods (-60% slower recovery!) that make normal leech/flasks semi-useless.

I like what you did here, really do. I do offer a different take on it that seems to me just as HC viable.

I have been testing few things regarding this build to make it my own. Made few changes in order to bring out my gamestyle.

Changes are :

- I don't use Arctic Armor anymore as I leveled up (85lv) as you said mana reserved is higher than benefits I can possible get from it.
- change to my gear - both rings, shield, helmet and belt are changed to better ones
- because of change in my gear I swapped Greater Multiple Projectiles Support with Lesser one + Slower Projectiles Support for bosses


The thing I tested is simply using two Snakepits (I got lucky on poe.trade and get them for very low price). Those rolls are far from perfect but honestly after such a swap my dps got a lot higher not losing in the same time benefits from being tanky (change of belts, shield and helmet gave me boost as well). With two snakepits + lesser AB is firing 5 projectiles so it's good - after swapping it with slower projectiles support for boss it's firing 3 projectiles but their power is so high and concentrated every single boss is dying in no time (maps t12+). Only difference our projectiles are a lot slower and concetrated so the best choice is to get a lil bit closer.

Looking for gear I just noticed one thing with is (in my opinion) topping +2 to socketed minion gems in helmet. I'm talking about this very enchant :




40% increased damage for AB isn't bad at all - regarding golems I just gave them increased life support gem when needed. To be honest the only problem I got with such setup is fighting with Atziri (everything before her - 2 x vaal and trio - are easy) - it's doable to kill her but it's taking time so looking at time/profit it's just not worth it.

What do you think about such setup? As experienced player you know a lot better than me if there is a better way to utilize potential of character. I know when using two snakepits I'm losing a lot of str (I have only 481 str atm) - but getting +5% chance of block on high deff shield is working well. I still have life and mana leech from an enchant from boots + leech from Doryani's.

With this setup I'm able to destroy t12-t15 bosses without worrying about death. I want to keep advancing in game so I just wonder is this setup will work at the very end game content (I didn't try out guardians etc)?

Thank you for your reply in advance.

Hey dude! I'm really glad to see how far you took the build.

On helmets, the Innate value is over-written by lab enchants, so of course finding the Arctic breath enchant is great for us. The +2 to socketed minion gems is actually not an innate roll, it's a Prefix, so you can actually have the best of both worlds.

As for double snakepits, going down to lesser multiple projectiles, etc..... I still think gmp + them might be ideal for everything Except bosses. As for bosses, slower proj is ok.

Progressing past T15's? yeah, I think almost all builds have difficulties then. So I'm thinking the build is really close to as good as it gets, and not a lot to do to improve it. I never planned on making atziri/shaper kills with the build, but if you have consistently good positioning skills it's doable.

I really think there are better things to do with your time than that though.

Overall, great to see your progress!

This build is honestly pretty shit. I died to a freeze box, there's nothing useful to cause that not to happen. Flame dash doesn't help, because of course you're freezed. Maybe if you had included Lightning Warp as a secondary movement option, it could be a viable build, but right now it's just kinda bad. It was fun while it lasted, but there's no way it could be viable up into the late game.

Edit: I feel like my original message didn't do justice to how bad this build is. The thing is, I can open all the stronboxes I want, but the moment I find a freeze box, I'm dead. Please please please add Lightning Warp so future noobs like me will know to use it for boxes in case of freeze. Without it, the build really suffers, and honestly it's kinda fun and I want it to be good. But as is, it's just not good enough to be usable for long, as you'll just kinda die to a freeze box at some point.

To recap, ADD LIGHTNING WARP and you'll be perfectly good. Seriously. It's not good right now.

Or you can use and never die to Freeze boxes again?

Don't blame the build when you just don't know what you're doing.

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CantripN wrote:

Or you can use

and never die to Freeze boxes again?

Don't blame the build when you just don't know what you're doing.

That's cool and all, but like I said, I'm a noob. I didn't know about flasks of heat. Lightning Warp really should be added. It's just not reliable as a guide without it.

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I still think gmp + them might be ideal for everything Except bosses. As for bosses, slower proj is ok.

The main problem with gmp + 2 snakepits is our AB is so large you can easily die from reflect monsters (not even at reflect maps) - had one near death because I got few reflect rares next to each other. It's dangerous especially in open land maps.

I wouldn't be able to get it so far if not for your very good guide and a huge luck in rng.

Thank you so much for it.

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This build is honestly pretty shit. I died to a freeze box, there's nothing useful to cause that not to happen. Flame dash doesn't help, because of course you're freezed. Maybe if you had included Lightning Warp as a secondary movement option, it could be a viable build, but right now it's just kinda bad. It was fun while it lasted, but there's no way it could be viable up into the late game.

Edit: I feel like my original message didn't do justice to how bad this build is. The thing is, I can open all the stronboxes I want, but the moment I find a freeze box, I'm dead. Please please please add Lightning Warp so future noobs like me will know to use it for boxes in case of freeze. Without it, the build really suffers, and honestly it's kinda fun and I want it to be good. But as is, it's just not good enough to be usable for long, as you'll just kinda die to a freeze box at some point.

To recap, ADD LIGHTNING WARP and you'll be perfectly good. Seriously. It's not good right now.

Well at build you can see :
Utility 3 Link: Wand
Lightning Warp + Faster Casting + Less Duration.

At his gear you can see he is using flame dash + faster casting + lightning warp.

Movement skills are optionaland to be honest even when you don't have flask or using any movement skill - HOW can you die having clearly in your build Decoy Totem? Decoy Totem alone is buying you enough time to wait for freeze to end.

The problem isn't within guide nor skill setup but clearly within your own ability to use tools you have. I'm a newbie as well(well you are newbie not a noob - newbie = new player in game; noob = shitty player which just don't know how to play even after several months). My character have been created exactly 34days ago - you don't only need build but need to get used to game mechanics. If you don't even know how to use build how can you tell it's a shitty one?

PS If dying to freezing boxes define build as a bad one - well almost all builds are bad ones then because people are using flasks to get rid/or have immunity to being frozen.

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VinXin wrote:

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This build is honestly pretty shit. I died to a freeze box, there's nothing useful to cause that not to happen. Flame dash doesn't help, because of course you're freezed. Maybe if you had included Lightning Warp as a secondary movement option, it could be a viable build, but right now it's just kinda bad. It was fun while it lasted, but there's no way it could be viable up into the late game.

Edit: I feel like my original message didn't do justice to how bad this build is. The thing is, I can open all the stronboxes I want, but the moment I find a freeze box, I'm dead. Please please please add Lightning Warp so future noobs like me will know to use it for boxes in case of freeze. Without it, the build really suffers, and honestly it's kinda fun and I want it to be good. But as is, it's just not good enough to be usable for long, as you'll just kinda die to a freeze box at some point.

To recap, ADD LIGHTNING WARP and you'll be perfectly good. Seriously. It's not good right now.

Well at build you can see :
Utility 3 Link: Wand
Lightning Warp + Faster Casting + Less Duration.

At his gear you can see he is using flame dash + faster casting + lightning warp.

Movement skills are optionaland to be honest even when you don't have flask or using any movement skill - HOW can you die having clearly in your build Decoy Totem? Decoy Totem alone is buying you enough time to wait for freeze to end.

The problem isn't within guide nor skill setup but clearly within your own ability to use tools you have. I'm a newbie as well(well you are newbie not a noob - newbie = new player in game; noob = shitty player which just don't know how to play even after several months). My character have been created exactly 34days ago - you don't only need build but need to get used to game mechanics. If you don't even know how to use build how can you tell it's a shitty one?

PS If dying to freezing boxes define build as a bad one - well almost all builds are bad ones then because people are using flasks to get rid/or have immunity to being frozen.

Well here's the thing. I had a decoy totem up, and I still died. Frankly I think you might try to attribute blame to me for my death, but you really can't. My decoy totem was up, and I was following the build. In reference to Lightning Warp being in the build, that was clearly edited in after my original post. I know for a fact it wasn't there when I made my post.

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In reference to Lightning Warp being in the build, that was clearly edited in after my original post. I know for a fact it wasn't there when I made my post.

Your first post in this guide:

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To recap, ADD LIGHTNING WARP and you'll be perfectly good. Seriously. It's not good right now.
Last edited by Smoat on November 11, 2016 1:22 PM

Build guide comically shows when it was last edited.:
Last edited by Kwitch on November 8, 2016 3:32 PM

And lightning warp was one of my original ways of triggering Mastermind of Discord before I discovered Orb of Storms for that task. So back in August I think.